Adi

Set in context of the Bronze Age Harappan Civilization, Adi is a charming little tale about a boy from a merchant family in the town of Nausharo in modern-day Baluchistan. The author Jitu Mishra is a trained archaeologist, an avid educator of children and an incessant traveller with an anthropologist’s eye for details of people and places. In this book, he has made painstaking efforts to weave into the backdrop of this story archaeologically accurate knowledge about the specific places that Adi inhabits, and knowledge about people and culture that he has acquired through his many travels to the remote parts of India. The book is written in a simple, spare style that will be accessible to children. This is a unique piece of work - there are very few accessible, well-researched books of fiction about the Harappan civilization. I hope this book is widely read.Written in a simple, spare style, the book will be an easy read for a child.

Lovely rendition of the life and times of the people of Mohenjodaro, Harappa and it's adjoining areas. The story belongs to a time when humans had just learnt the use of copper. Iron was yet unknown. Life then was tough yet beautiful.This book is a must for children in secondary level onwards. It's a story of our early heritage and our children must be taught about it. It's a big big story told in plain and simple language.Request the author to write more such historical fictions. Adi can be made into a movie too. Hope someone from the film industry reads this.Kudos to the author for authoring such a lovely historical fiction.

Adi is a story of a little boy who lives in a small town near Mohenjodaro during the heyday of the Indus Valley Civilisation. He makes a trip to Mohenjodaro and is fascinated by what he sees and experiences, which is exactly what the reader feels as well! We have read about the unique achievements of the Indus Valley Civilisation in history texts, but never in such a simple and accessible way that is both historically accurate and connects to the reader. If only more history could be presented in this way!

At the heart of Adi, is the author's love for ancient Indian cultures. The meticulous research that enriches the story is tangible in the weight of the words and sentences that speak the simple story of Adi and his journey from a little town of Nausharo to the bustling, vibrant city of Mohenjodaro. Delve into the rustic life of the Indus people as they manoeuvre around the many twists and turns of life, feel the heat of the copper furnaces as you read about the game of bitto and the festivities at the mound of the dead. Sounds almost oxymoronish, I know, but the interplay of life and death formed the very fabric of the life of these ancient civilisations that still speak to us. It's delicious all the more in the case of the Indus Valley Civilisation with its yet to be unravelled script. While we wait for someone to crack the code of the Harappan language, we have books like Adi whispering beautifully of the ages gone by.

Very good read. Though I am not from History background, I enjoyed each and every fact mentioned in the book…